The obvious question is, how come these two actions are directly associated with being God’s children? Of all the things that you can think of, are these the two you would have picked? The answer is that the pasuk is referring to when people would die in those days, the goyim would cut themselves and tear out their hair in grief.

The Seforno says a very nice idea that since we are children of Hashem, we are guaranteed a portion in Olam Habah, the World to Come. Because of this there is no reason to have to show your grief outwardly over a death. The deceased is in a much better place than we are. I think the Seforno is saying that if you show too much grief, you are showing a lack of belief in this principle. Grief is obviously expected in this situation, but the bottom line must be that you believe the deceased is much better off than they were in Olam Hazeh.

The Ibn Ezra says something very powerful. Once you know that Hashem is your Father and that he loves you more than any human father possibly could, then you cannot cut yourself over a death or anything bad that happens. Everything Hashem does is for the good! When a parent does not let a child have something that he really wants, do we say that he is a bad parent? No. We assume that the parent knows what’s best for his child. And just like a little child doesn’t understand what his father is doing is good for him, he just trusts his father implicitly, so too we must trust Hashem even without understanding his actions.

We must show that we are different from the goyim who do not recognize the good in everything and therefore, get so lost in their grief that they physically harm themselves. We cannot be like that for we are Hashem’s children and how sad is it when a child cannot or does not trust their father? Current events do not appear to bode well for the Jewish people, however, we must keep our bitachon and trust that no matter what happens, Hashem is leading us in the right direction.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Parshas Eikev continues the theme of Sefer Devarim with Moshe giving his farewell address to Bnei Yisrael. The Parshah opens with Moshe telling Bnei Yisrael all the good that awaits them if they keep the mitzvos. “בָּרוּךְ תִּהְיֶה מִכָּל הָעַמִּים…” “You will be blessed more than all other nations…” (7:14), this is one of the rewards Moshe tells Bnei Yisrael that they will receive for fulfilling the Torah. The pasuk is explained not like the simple translation, rather instead of translating the pasuk like we did earlier, you read it, “You will be blessed from (by) all the other nations”,that the nations will bless you. But this will not be a brachah that they will want to give. Instead, it will be the same as when the two malachim (angels), one good and one bad, come to the house on Friday night. If the house is ready for Shabbos, the good angel blesses the home and the bad angel is forced to say Amen. The same way the bad angel is forced to agree with the good angel’s blessing, the nations will be forced to bless us.

The Abarbanel asks, how is this a brachah? What good does it do the Bnei Yisrael to have the nations of the world forced to agree to our goodness? The Kli Yakar answers that the nations of the world need us more then we need them. We know that Eretz Yisrael is, “ארץ אשר תמיד עיני ה' אלוקיך בה” “the land which Hashem’s eyes are constantly upon it” (11:10). He wants to explain this concept that Hashem looks at Eretz Yisrael first to determine what it needs, and then and only then, based off of that, Hashem distributes the needs of the rest of the world. So the whole world’s supplies come from Hashem’s attention to Eretz Yisrael. According to this, it’s easy to see why the Goyim bless us, only through our good fortunes do their good fortunes come. Still, they only do this begrudgingly since the only reason they bless us is for their own good and not because they love us. If they were not connected to us, they wouldn’t bother to bless us. However, this is only when we keep the mitzvos, otherwise we have no control over the nation’s livelihood.

How lucky we are to have been given Eretz Yisrael, the land from which the whole world’s fate hinges! We should be zoche to keep the Torah and mitzvos to such a degree that that control of the world is once again in our hands and we should reach a state where the entire world sings the praises of the Jewish Nation, but this time not from necessity, but from pure admiration.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

It's good to be back after a three week layoff. hope you're all having a great summer!

Sefer Devarim is Moshe’s farewell address to Bnei Yisrael. In it he reviews everything that happened to the nation from after they left Mitzrayim until this point as well as most of the mitzvos. In this week’s parshah, Parshas Va’eschanan, we have several famous passages such as the parshah of Ve’ahavta from the daily Shema, the Aseres Hadibros (with a few changes from the original in Parshas Yisro) and Ve’haya Ki Yiveacha, one of the parshiyos contained in Tefillin, which highlight key mitzvos and events. Even without these important and famous parshiyos we would easily deduce that whatever is contained in Sefer Devarim must be extremely important as this is what Moshe chose to give over right before he died. However, sometimes it’s not only what we see from Moshe’s words, but from his actions that we learn the greatest lessons from.

At the beginning of Shlishi, the pasuk says, “אָז יַבְדִּיל מֹשֶׁה שָׁלֹשׁ עָרִים בְּעֵבֶר הַיַּרְדֵּן” “Then Moshe separated three cities on the side of the Jordan” (4:41). These cities are in connection to the Arei Miklat (Cities of Refuge), the collection of cities where someone who was guilty of killing B’shogeg, accidently, would run to and live until the death of the Kohen Gadol. There were three of these cities in Eretz Yisrael and three on the other side of the Yarden, the Jordan River, where the tribes of Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe lived. The pasuk says that Moshe set aside the three cities that would be used as Arei Miklat outside of Eretz Yisrael before he died. Rashi adds something which makes this seemingly side detail unbelievable. The Gemarah in Makkos (10a) says that the three Arei Miklat outside of Eretz Yisrael had no significance at all until the three cities in Eretz Yisrael were set up. If someone killed accidently in the meantime, they did not go to those three cities. This means that Moshe’s efforts at this time were wholly unnecessary from a practical point of view. We learn from here that when you have the opportunity to participate in a mitzvah, or even just the planning of a mitzvah, you should do as much of it as you can.

We see this by Dovid Hamelech as well, even after Hashem told him that he would not be the one to build the Beis Hamikdash, he still collected many of the materials needed for its construction to give to his son Shlomo. Another example would be an old man planting an esrog tree. Since esrog trees take a few years to mature, by the time the fruit would be ready to use for the mitzvah, the old man may have already passed away. However, his planting the tree for other people to use is his contribution to the mitzvah even if it isn’t actually part of the mitzvah.

The Kli Yakar uses this to explain the language of the pasuk immediately before ours. It says, “וְשָׁמַרְתָּ אֶת חֻקָּיו וְאֶת מִצְוֹתָיו אֲשֶׁר אָנֹכִי מְצַוְּךָ הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר יִיטַב לְךָ וּלְבָנֶיךָ אַחֲרֶיךָ” “And you shall observe his laws and his commandments, which I command you this day, that it may be well with you and your children after you…” (4:40). The word “אַחֲרֶיךָ” “after you” seems to be extra, why can’t the pasuk just say “and your children”? He explains that mitzvos that you do are not only for you and your children, they are potentially for children that come even after you’re not around!

With all the lessons that we learn from Moshe in Sefer Devarim, it’s the one that he doesn’t say out loud that resonates to us. We always prepare for later in life in order to be set up for when we can no longer take care of things. Perhaps we should do the same with mitzvos. Let’s start to look around and see what steps we can take in order that we will always have mitzvos ready and waiting for us. And if it doesn’t end up being for us, then let’s make sure that someone else will be able to produce a mitzvah from our efforts. As we see from Moshe Rabbeinu and Dovid Hamelech, we must always strive to do mitzvos even if we know that we won’t be the ones fulfilling them. With that attitude, the performance of mitzvos in Bnei Yisrael will only increase bringing mashiach closer and closer.